And the walls come tumbling down

July 13, 2007

By Will Elliott/Frontiersman

WASILLA - Alaska's last drive-in movie theater closed in the late 1970s, leaving Mat-Su Valley residents hoping to catch movies on an outdoor screen with a few-thousand-miles round trip to British Columbia.

Crowds of Wasilla residents got the next best thing this week with the continued destruction of the Cottonwood Creek Mall.

On a sunny Wednesday afternoon, about 30 people gathered on foot, in cars, trucks, bikes, motorcycles and taxis to watch an excavator menace the glass foyer and Cottonwood Creek Mall sign at the building's main entrance. The smell of cedar was unmistakable, possibly from the mall's exposed wood beams. It mingled with that of hot shortening from the Taco Bell nearby, which served as a concession stand for a number of spectators.

Already the Alaska Marketplace section of the mall had demolished, project supervisor Mike Woodell said, leaving nothing but a uniform carpet of debris and a few glue-laminated beams to be salvaged later. Palmer- and Anchorage-based Alaska Demolition had been steadily taking the mall apart since the end of June. An excavator bit and butted at the structure Wednesday while a water truck hosed the work to keep down dust.

&#8220I'm expecting in three weeks we'll have it all out of here,” Woodell said.

This week held the highlight for most spectators, who were eager to see the foyer's three-story wall of glass shatter under the excavator's toothy bucket. The mall is being leveled to make way for a new Target story planned for the lot.

&#8220I hoped they'd use a wrecking ball,” said Ian Zwink, 12, who watched the spectacle with his mother from the front seat of their truck. &#8220It's fun watching the stuff smashing down.”

Zwink and his mother stopped at McDonald's for ice cream before pulling into the already crowded parking lot. Beside them, three taxi cabs idled as drivers watched while waiting for calls. Couples and kids looked on from the beds of pickup trucks and roofs of cars, while other onlookers squatted or stood back to frame the scene in their camera phones.

Finally the excavator clamped onto the top of the foyer's front wall and pulled backward. The Zwinks called it the moment they'd been waiting for.

From the safety of the parking lot, the crashing glass and splintering wood was a bit anticlimactic, Zwink said. He had hoped the bucket would burst outward through the wall of windows, rather than merely pressing down from above and letting the wall collapse on its own.

Seeing the Cottonwood Creek Mall sign destroyed evoked different feelings, Zwink said.

&#8220There used to be lots of fun stuff [at the mall],” he said, including Easter egg hunts, trick-or-treating, music performances and an arcade. The mall was also a popular teen haunt, with retailers targeting that market and an agoral atmosphere that encouraged hanging out.

Zwink said he didn't expect any of that would be the case with Minnesota-based Target, the nation's sixth-largest big box retailer.

&#8220I'm kind of sad to see [the mall] go,” he said.

Engines started and a few spectators pulled away as the sign's last letters disappeared into the debris below.

Jason Hamlin, president of the Greater Wasilla Chamber of Commerce, said the new Target and associated structures would bring a great presence to the area.

&#8220They will revive that corner, such an important intersection of downtown Wasilla,” he said.

Contact Frontiersman reporter Will Elliott at 352-2252 or will.elliott@frontiersman.com.